Newton’s Law to Life

Everyone’s heard of Newton’s laws. Simple, evident and seemingly boring right? Well what if I told you Newton’s third law was my belief?

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer I was just starting to find myself, just starting high school. At the time if you would have asked me ‘are you glad your mom was diagnosed with cancer?’ I would have probably looked at you like you were insane. How could anyone appreciate something that’s defined as a “bad phenomenon?” Cancer was a word I had never even thought about at fourteen, I still held onto my youthful ideas of, it happens but it would never happen to me. When my mom sat me down to tell me not only that she has cancer, but that she had a type of cancer that could easily spread to her lungs, bones or brain, my world stopped. I had never heard a good cancer story, only the horrible whispers from people, of oh how terrible it was, when most, if not all of them had never even been directly affected by it. Cancer was known as the “C” word around me when people found out, like I didn’t already know. My mother decided to be strong; she knew if she let the cancer take over it would. She never let the “C” word enter her life, and I had some of the best times of my life with my mother during these years. She wanted to make the most of everything and she told me something I will never forget. She said “I wish that at one point in everyone’s life they would live like they had cancer.” She appreciated small things, and lived in the moment. She showed me how I wanted to live my life.

If everyone took the time to “live like they had cancer” and just think about the small decisions they made everyday, you could give yourself a happier life. So if you forgot Newton’s law I will tell you that for everything you do there is an equal and opposite reaction. My mom over took her cancer and four years later is now cancer free and still likes to live as if she wasn’t. Everything she did helped her in an equal and opposite way, god blessed her with cancer, and now she’s blessing other people with hope. I want to make others believe, therefore, this is a good cancer story. This I believe.

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This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.